Baby By Accident(38)

She knew if she glanced at him those eyes of his would be staring at her with sinful intent.

She didn’t look. Didn’t want to see what she’d been seeing for weeks. Those tiger eyes gleaming, the gold flickering, the green glinting. Telling her clearly—Vico Mattare had plans for their marriage.

She’d ignored him before. She ignored him now. She would ignore him later.

The man, for once, was going to be disappointed.

The thought was enough to lighten her spirits. For a moment.

“This is the perfect wedding.” Hannah, a woman not known for her sentimentality, smiled and sighed from across the table. “I compliment you on your taste, Lise.”

This was the perfect wedding. If there’d been another groom.

“My new wife has excellent taste.” The pirate by her side chuckled. “In all things.”

“Including husbands,” one of his cousins belted out.

Everyone laughed.

Rage trembled down her arm and right into her hand. She’d love to take up this silver knife lying by the side of her plate and cut his throat. An appropriate ending for a pirate. But ladies didn’t kill or maim, especially during their perfect wedding.

A wedding he’d known every detail about.

She glanced across the table at her two best friends. Suz lifted her champagne glass in a silent toast. Tracy winked. Both of them were clearly delighted.

Delighted. That she was married to this man.

The realization clicked. The memory rushed in. Tracy and Suz grinning at something he’d said at one of the many dinner parties she’d been forced to attend with him during the last month. Grinning and then nodding and then giving her a sly look from across the room. Her two friends had known about her dreams for her wedding. They’d known about her silly habit of saving photos and pictures. They’d known where she hid her wedding box.

Lise glared at them, all of a sudden knowing exactly who she could blame for this monstrous highjacking of her lovely plans and dreams.

Both of them suddenly found their attention drawn away by other guests.

“It would be best, Princesse,” her new husband took a sip of wine before continuing, “if you did not appear as if you are contemplating murder at your own wedding.”

“Best for whom?” She continued to glare at her so-called friends. “And don’t call me that nickname.”

“Why, best for you.” Answering her questions and ignoring her demand, his tone stayed relaxed, as if he had not a care in the world. “Do you want to explain to one and all why the bride is not glowing with happiness? Do you want to open that particular Pandora’s box?”

Yes. Yes, she really did. She would love to jump on her chair and yell out her situation to everyone. The action would be gloriously freeing and satisfying.

Her fingers tightened into white fists.

“I see you are contemplating it.”

Finally, she looked him straight in the face. Not since the moment after their kiss at the altar had she dared. But now she did. “Yes.”

“I would advise against it.” His smile mocked, his gaze glittering with challenge. “For your mother’s sake.”

Hate streamed in her veins at the implied threat. The threat he dangled in front of her every time she tried to defy him. The hate for him swept away the anger at her two friends. They didn’t know the true extent of his nature because she hadn’t told them. How could she blame them for buying into the fairy tale when she hadn’t been able to share with them the reality of her nightmare?

“Here we are,” he said nonchalantly as if her hate-filled stare was a mere speck of sand in his existence. “The next course.”

The soup dish swished under her nose to land on the table in front of her. The smell of oysters and garlic drifted up, slipping into her nostrils and mouth and down her throat to touch off the ever-present nausea.

She slid back in her chair, gritted her teeth in a smile at the table’s beaming guests, and attempted to hold her breath.

“Allow me,” he rumbled at her side. The soup, and the smell, disappeared.

“Thank you,” she managed to say through the sickness.

Thank you for ruining my life.

“Vico.” One of his brothers eyed him over a glass of wine. “Why are you stealing your bride’s food?”

“I’m preparing for tonight.” He grinned.

His brother gave him a wide grin back.

“You have been preparing for years.” His uncle roared with laughter.

The men of his family who encircled their table, and even the tables nearest them, joined in the laughter while their wives tutted and hid their grins.

What were they laughing about?

“Maybe so,” her husband chuckled beside her. “But as you know, I like to take every advantage that comes my way. You can never be too sure…”